Monthly Archives: October 2009

I see fire on the water

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Six weeks ago, my TV broke.  Something crackled and popped inside of it; the screen went black.  I immediately unplugged it and stared dumbfoundedly at it.  This TV set was in my possession for only 3 years!  Why did it break?  And what was I supposed to do about procuring a new one?

Ten days later, Alex and I headed to Sears to buy a new TV.  We picked out a nice 40″ LCD TV (compared to the previous 32″ set) for a decent price.  We took it home, looked up reviews online, and — deciding that it was actually a pretty good TV after all — unpacked it and set it up.  It’s been a month that we’ve had it in our possession.

However, it’s been six weeks that my old TV has been sitting in my apartment, collecting more dust by the day.  Up until today, I didn’t know what to do with it.  I know that I could have thrown it out with the regular  trash but … I didn’t want to do that.  I don’t want to add the growing tonnage of e-waste.  So, finally, I looked up electronics recycling on NYC’s 311 website.  (311 is New York City’s phone number for government information and non-emergency services.)  As it turns out, there are a bunch of electronics recycling options for NYC residents!

Because Vizio is not one of the companies participating in the manufacturer take-back program, my only option is to bring the TV to one of the stores that participates in the retailer take-back program.  It looks like I’ll be hauling the TV to my local Best Buy!  I have a car and I have a boy, so it should not take us too long to bring it to the store.

And I have more respect for Best Buy now.  Guess where I’ll be buying my gadgets from now on?

I smell the rose in her hair

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I don’t know what’s going on with me lately but I’ve been seriously considering packing up and moving my life to a different city… on a different coast.

This started, I think, because Alex is applying to grad schools all over the country (and even one in Canada). One of the schools is in Boulder, CO, and my interest in the city was piqued after looking at the Department of Philosophy website.  All of the faculty and students have such exotic hobbies: rock climbing, mountain biking, hiking, trail running, skiing, snowboarding, and so on.  The photos of Boulder didn’t help, either — have you seen the Rocky Mountains?  They’re breathtaking!

However, after doing some more research into the city, I realized that’s it’s not for me.  The city is too small (~94,000 people, which is minuscule compared to the 8 million in NYC!) and it’s mainly a college town.  This is great, of course, because I want to work in a university library.  However, I have a feeling I’ll get tired of the young crowd as I get older.  And aside from all of the winter sports, there’s not much else to do — and I don’t play sports!  So I can’t even participate in those.  In the end, I realized that I admire Boulder for what it is and I envy the people who have made it their home… but, in the long run, I will not be happy.

So I started looking elsewhere, closer to the coast.  I considered Seattle but, for some reason, it just didn’t do it for me.  It was probably all the fog and rain that the locals (and transplants) complain about.  So then I looked south of Seattle and found Portland, OR.  For some reason, Portland made sense.  I looked at the universities, I searched craigslist for apartments, I read about all of the microbreweries, I learned about the famous Portland Farmers Market, I found out about its eco-friendliness, I discovered it’s the best city for bicycling in North America, …  It all just adds up and appeals to everything that I value.  And because it’s not an outdoors-only type of atmosphere and there’s more to the city than the colleges and universities, I won’t grow to resent it as I get older!

I am thisclose to applying for a position at Portland State University.  There’s nothing to lose, right?  Best case scenario: I get the job and move to Portland.  Worst case scenario: I don’t get the job and stay in NYC.  It’s a win-win situation.